Have Your Say – What’s the Hardest Style of Sim Racing?

Hardest Types of Sim Racing.jpg
Sim racing is a diverse hobby, encompassing dozens of categories and sub-categories. Which do you find to be the most challenging?

In our latest Have Your Say article, where your responses are the real story, we want to hear about what style(s) of driving you struggle with in sim racing. Whether it’s something you can’t seem to grasp despite a concerted effort to learn, something that involves skills you’re too intimidated to learn, something you thought you understood before looking at a leaderboard ranking, or any other reason, we want to hear it. Below are some ideas, but whatever makes you shake your head in frustration, we want to hear about it in the comments below.
  • Drifting – Whereas some driving styles involve frantic activity from the driver, drifting done right is smooth and seems like it should be achievable. Scratch the surface of drifting, however, and you realize that drivers are sustaining perfect levels of traction loss in high-horsepower cars while moving the car around a complex course just inches from surrounding walls.
  • Rally racing – Speaking of traction loss, how about taking a racing car with acceleration comparable to the best supercars out to snow or dirt covered winding tracks, often at the edge of a cliff. Oh, and you probably won’t have the course memorized; you’ll need to listen to coded calls from your passenger to determine what challenges are ahead, only seconds before you come across them.
  • Formula 1 – Whether it's the modern generation of F1, which are the fastest cars to ever compete in a race series, or older, more unforgiving F1 cars with brutal speed and less downforce, watching real-life F1 drivers gives us an appreciation the incredible pace and precision demanded by these cars. This is something hard to replicate for most of us at home.
These are just a few examples, but of course we want to hear your specific story. What is the most difficult form of racing for you?
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

F1 titles (Codemasters), I started racing without “Traction Control” about 5 years ago, and last year I decided to turn them all off, except the racing line, difficult to attack corners without it. The car just feels more alive with all the assists off, but also requires delicate throttle and brake inputs. I also drive exclusively in “Cockpit View”. Just don’t understand how pro sim-racers still drive with T-cam view on, what a joke.
 

Attachments

  • 20F0107D-642E-4E73-9CC9-F99006DA82FD.jpeg
    20F0107D-642E-4E73-9CC9-F99006DA82FD.jpeg
    527 KB · Views: 55
  • 8F0DFCF4-8C91-4A6B-9E58-F3ACF60F8D83.jpeg
    8F0DFCF4-8C91-4A6B-9E58-F3ACF60F8D83.jpeg
    486.8 KB · Views: 45
Vintage endurance racing. Drive quickly enough to be competitive, but not too aggressively or your car will wear down. A slow pitstop can make a big difference. You have to completely trust other people that they won't kiss the fence with the car or blow the engine. Furthermore, you yourself has to trust that you will not lose concentration for three or four hours at a time. Lapping the slower cars during a scrap for position can be an experience, especially if the circuit doesn't have long straightways. In Assetto Corsa, give the Porsche 917K a go around the Nordschleife, Spa-Francorchamps, Sebring, Brands Hatch, Mugello, etc. It's a humbling experience.
 
anything from Project Cars
like mom said.... it's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get :unsure:
 
My problem with Drifting is I don't damn well want to do it and I try to avoid it at all times. If Drifting was the only sim racing there was I would collect stamps.
While I would never deny someone something they love doing, I have ZERO interest in drifting, and I mean ZERO. I would LOVE for Ilja Jusupov to incorporate a drift filter in Content Manager for the AC server directory. Sadly, it would probably cut the entire list by 60%.
 
I don't know. Maybe a road car or old formula car in wet conditions. I don't know how to gauge the massive puddles and no force feedback and constant random traction loss.

Also, some form of slow dirt will always make me quit.
 
Last edited:
I think it is retro simracing for me. So many difficult things. First you need to find a place that sells or allows you to download the game you are looking for. Then trying to get it to install, then trying to get it to launch and then trying to keep it from crashing. Learning how all of that additional software goes together and trying to get it to install. Then deciding at last minute to add something that breaks it. After that trying to bind your controls, fixing more crashing. Fixing random audio issues.

After you have got it all installed you are faced with retro simracing handling. Cars that are often times totally uncontrollable after small amount of yaw angle, cars that lose all grip once you try to take a spinning wheel start. Then you have tons of additional weirdness. Cockpit cam that shakes like crazy, no fov sliders and poor or non existing ffb. The ai can be totally merciless and tracks have bumps that feel more like trying to fit a piano through a staircase than anything actually feeling like a bump on a road. The tracks can also be quite different than what you are used to with modern laser scanned tracks. Sometimes it feels like a totally different track. It can be fun but at the same time incredibly frustrating and nostalgia killing. I think I'll go find viper racing and see how I'll do with the career mode... This was supposed to be a "don't do it" kind of post but I have tricked myself to actually do this... sigh

Honestly tho the most difficult thing to drive for me is rf1 games and single seaters. There is just so narrow window where the car can be without going into massive save or die moment. Things also happen way too quick for me and the threshold for mistakes is tiny. That combined with usually lots of power and very snappy car behaviour I am just getting weird spins. Games like ac, rf2 and ams2 feel a lot easier.

Also now having a dd wheel has helped me a lot with catching those slides. For me the huge difference a dd wheel makes is not really about catching the car but being able to smoothly drive the car out of slide when you have a really nervous car under you. With dd you are not just sawing against the resistance of the ffb mechanism like I felt with old belt driven ffb wheel. You can actually feel the ffb all the way through the motion whereas with belt driven wheels the ffb just goes to mush as soon as you need to make quick movements one after other. Much easier to point the fronts to right direction at the right moment. With belt driven wheel and a nervous sim like rf1 catching and coming out slides was a lot more guesswork done at too fast speeds.
 
Last edited:
Last time I played it was already possible to run in 60fps, and I'm talking about at least 5 years ago, who knows what the modding community has done in those 5 years.
Yes, pretty sure you can do all racing at 60 FPS. I also have a mod for full screen that gets rid of those large black borders.
 
For me Formula 1 is the most grueling, w/ Rally being 2nd. Drifting is so chill imho
 
IMHO, it's rallying with low grip cars like Group B but only when you don't have unlimited time to learn the stages. It just takes massive amounts of concentration to finish a stage without crashing, listening to the co-driver and being fast.
Endurance racing on Nordschleife with traffic at night... it's also super damn hard!
Drifting is hard to learn on sim, but once you learn it is very easy. F1 once you get used to the speed, it's also not so enjoyable on sim because they got tons of grip.
 
I struggle a lot with Rallying as most of all here, for road tracks I personall find the hardest cars to drive are the Group C cars and of course some vintage F1 cars.
 
Vintage F1 and the Super V8's had always been a little tricky for me. Tend to find them more fun nowadays though.
 
I actually imported Richard Burns Rally since it didnt come out in the US. Trying to get the qualification time on the Rally School stage in the Richard Burns Rally "tutorial". When, I did it, I was exhausted but happy. Then I tried a full stage, and realized the game is even harder than that. Still Richard Burns Rally is still the king of rally games for me, and while other games are fun, none had the satifaction of beating that last lesson stage.
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Mike Smith
Article read time
2 min read
Views
20,231
Comments
123
Last update

What is the reason for your passion for sim racing?

  • Watching real motorsport

    Votes: 171 66.5%
  • Physics and mechanics

    Votes: 112 43.6%
  • Competition and adrenaline

    Votes: 119 46.3%
  • Practice for real racing

    Votes: 44 17.1%
  • Community and simracers

    Votes: 70 27.2%
Back
Top